About Noël Coward

Noël Peirce Coward was born in 1899 and made his professional stage debut in The Goldfish at the age of 11, leading to many child actor appearances over the next few years. His playwriting breakthrough came in the form of 1924’s The Vortex; its scandalising investigation of cocaine-use and adultery made his name as both actor and playwright.

As the decade ran its course, Coward wrote a string of successful plays, musicals and revues. Fallen Angels found two female friends considering infidelity over a drunken evening; Hay Fever and Easy Virtue poked a comic finger at upper-class family dynamics; Bitter Sweet revived the operetta form with a sweeping, melodramatic musical. By 1929, he had become the highest-paid writer in the world.

His professional partnership with childhood friend Gertrude Lawrence started with 1930’s Private Lives, the divorced couple comedy which became one of his most-produced plays. Despite only working together as adults a handful of times, the two would remain linked in the public imagination until her death in 1952.

The Second World War saw Coward entertaining troops abroad and even acting as a spy for the Foreign Office. His plays during these years included Blithe Spirit which ran for 1,997 performances, outlasting the war (a West End record until The Mousetrap overtook it in 1957), This Happy Breed and Present Laughter. His two wartime screenplays, In Which We Serve (which he co-directed with the young David Lean) and Brief Encounter quickly became classics of British cinema. 

The postwar years were more difficult. Austerity Britain – the London critics determined – was out of tune with the brittle Coward wit. In response, Coward re-invented himself as a cabaret and TV star, particularly in America. In 1955 he played a sell-out season in Las Vegas featuring many of his most famous songs, including Mad About the Boy, I’ll See You Again and Mad Dogs and Englishmen. In 1964 he became the first living playwright to be performed by the National Theatre, when he directed Maggie Smith and Derek Jacobi in Hay Fever. Late in his career he was lauded for his roles in a number of films including Our Man In Havana (1959) and his role as the iconic Mr. Bridger alongside Michael Caine in The Italian Job (1969). 

A prolific writer, actor, director and singer-songwriter, close friends began to call Coward ‘The Master’ in recognition of his productivity across different arenas. His final West End appearance was A Suite In Three Keys in 1966, which he wrote and starred in. He was knighted in 1970 and died peacefully in 1973 in his beloved Jamaica.